Google's top lawyer coached Kamala Harris for Trump debate as tech antitrust watchdogs protest
A prominent Google lawyer in the search giant’s landmark lawsuit with the U.S. government is also a key adviser to Kamala Harris’s campaign, and tech antitrust watchdogs are calling the cozy relationship “scandalous,” The Post has learned.
In a doubleheader that drew attention in the Beltway, Google attorney Karen Dunn on Tuesday filed an initial defense in Virginia federal court against the Biden-Harris Justice Department's lawsuit targeting its digital advertising business, and then He reportedly ran out of the courtroom. to help Harris that same afternoon with final preparations to face Trump in Philadelphia.
“You couldn't have written a better script if you were writing a TV movie,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project.
Now that Harris has received rave reviews for her performance in the debate against Trump, Dunn's influence in Democratic circles is reaching an all-time high. This could bode well for Google, which had already been accused of having an illegal monopoly on online search in a separate federal lawsuit.
“One imagines his stature in Harris’s world has only increased since the debate, which could be concerning if he ever negotiates a potential deal with the Justice Department under Harris,” Hauser said.
Dunn is the lead litigator for the law firm Paul Weiss, whose chairman, Brad Karp, is leading a “Kamala Harris Lawyers Committee” to raise money for her White House bid. She is tasked with defending Google against a Justice Department case seen as an existential threat to its business model.
The dynamic with Dunn has drawn the attention of antitrust experts who fear that she and tech-savvy advisers in Harris’ inner circle are lobbying behind the scenes for a “quick-fire deal” rather than a breakup of Google’s dominant monopolies, as The Post has reported.
While Dunn is a highly respected attorney with a long history of defending clients of big tech companies like Apple and Uber in high-profile cases, some experts viewed her selection by Google to deliver its opening statement as a clear power play intended to show her ties to the White House.
“It must be demoralizing for the Justice Department’s team of lawyers working around the clock to prepare the ad tech case against Google for trial under the ‘rocket file’ schedule to see the administration sit down with opposing counsel for advice,” said Brendan Benedict, an antitrust litigator at Benedict Law Group who has taken on the tech giant in court.
The close ties could “mean that Dunn is on the shortlist to replace (antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter) at the Justice Department when Harris takes office,” Benedict added. Dunn was reportedly considered for the post at the start of President Biden’s term.
When asked for comment, a representative for Paul Weiss pointed to recent quotes from legal experts who questioned claims of a conflict of interest.
For example, Steven Lubet, professor emeritus of legal ethics at Northwestern University Law School, told the New York Times that “there was no conflict between coaching debate preparation and representing a client in a case against the government.”
Google declined to comment. Harris's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The scandal over Dunn's role in Harris's campaign is just the latest development in an ethical quagmire in the Google ad technology case involving Paul Weiss.
Aiden Buzzetti, president of the conservative advocacy group Bull Moose Project, described the New York law firm’s tactics toward Kanter as a “huge ethical red flag.”
“I’m surprised that the Harris campaign has opened itself up to those kinds of questions,” Buzzetti said. “Even Google’s law firm is giving her instructions on what to say. I can’t put into words how troubling that is for us as an organization that opposes this market domination and manipulation by Big Tech.”
Paul Weiss accused Kanter — himself a former attorney at the firm — of bias because of his past work representing Google foes such as Yelp, the trade group News/Media Alliance and The Post owner News Corp. Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected Google's claims as “a specious defense.”
Meanwhile, Yelp and the News/Media Alliance accused Paul Weiss of switching sides by agreeing to defend Google in the case and of improperly taking advantage of the knowledge he gained from working with the company's critics. They asked the court to bar the firm from representing Google.
Brinkema also denied that motion last October, though he did impose significant restrictions, including ordering the recusal of an attorney for Paul Weiss from the case and blocking Google from producing evidence related to Yelp or the trade group.
In a presentation made in July, News Corp alleged that Paul Weiss had ignored the judge's restrictions and the potentially violated attorney-client privilege through the filing of certain documents in the adtech case.
Top Republicans have begun to criticize Harris for her reliance on Dunn.
In a letter dated September 10 The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee asked Attorney General Merrick Garland for a briefing by Sept. 24 on how the Justice Department was “working to combat potential conflicts of interest and political bias” related to Dunn’s involvement in the Google lawsuit.
Separately, a senior Trump campaign adviser criticized Dunn's activities as “outrageous” and argued that they showed Harris “will never stand up to Big Tech.”
In his opening statement, Dunn argued that the Justice Department case — brought last January by Biden and Harris appointees — would bring disastrous “unintended consequences” if it resulted in the forced breakup of Google’s dominance over the digital advertising market.
“Yes, Karen Dunn arguing against ‘government intervention’ in a market where the government alleges Google holds a long-standing 91% market share, and then walking off to prepare Vice President Harris for her presidential debate, is extremely disturbing,” Lee Hepner, senior attorney at the American Economic Liberties Project. wrote in X.
